There are several FSA programs I'd like to see hacked. Just an example... There is no reason guys in Iowa should be collecting $55/acre to plant a cover crop. I believe this number can get bigger if you jump through two more hoops. Are these mere drops in bucket, probably but a drop here and a drop there is how we got in this mess. Government restrictions on erosion and nutrient control are coming whether we want them or not and it's not the tax payers responsibility to pay me to keep my soil and fertilizer on my ground. For numerous reasons I planted a couple hundred acres of cover crops this fall, it never crossed my mind to ask my neighbor to help me pay for them. Perhaps this program was hacked, I can't even figure it out yet.

I can't find a new solid number, but what is the average percentage of the insurance premium being subsidized? Is it going to be over 60%? If so, I'm willing to do some work there too. For every one percent of my premiums they take away I'd like to see 2% knocked off the food program side. Lets compromise and agree to keep WIC away from the slashing.

Lowering the subsidy would cause the insurance companies to crack down on fraud themselves. Right now they're just riding along penciling the guaranteed money into their budget. Free money makes for lazy people, take away the free money and they'll get better at tightening their belt and the first place they'll look is to the guy they know is ****ing the system. The guys farming sand flats in Texas are the first ones to jump my ass with the "I need it to survive" line. Well, if you need the government to pay for over half of the system that allows you to keep plugging along you're doing something seriously wrong and probably shouldn't be eligible for insurance in the first place, let alone public funded insurance.

If seriously subsidized insurance is already considered a must have, what is going to happen when something serious like South American getting their transportation to port system figured out or when they shut the aquifer off?

Most of the cover crop stuff is in the NRCS. I said above if they think they need to chop, chop conservation. But it has to be far far more than 1%.

The premium subsidy for MPCI varies with coverage levels. 70% coverage is the max, and I think it is just over half. I think 50% coverage and 85% are something like 30% subsidized. Not sure on that.

Good luck on finding audits. Audits are paid for by premiums. RMA demolished over the last 3 years.

What does SA or irrigation have to do with insurance?

To me what needs to happen with food stamps is they need to limit it to approved UPCs after they establish financial need. That would require only decent foods could be purchased with food stamps. People could still go buy drugs/alcohol/nonsense with their McDonalds wage, but at least they're not doing it with government money.